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"So what did Santa Clause bring you for Christmas?" asked a woman to her friend's little boy.

"A gun and a knife!" returned the young kid in a flash. Both women beamed.

They didn't know it, but I could see what was happening here. In days of old, parents used to send their children out into the cotton mill so that the family did not have to eat rats. Nowadays, with one in fifteen Scottish children living with drug addicted parents, it is not the cotton mill for which these little urchins are prepared. Today, it is probably the bank, petrol station, off-licence or post-office.

Ah, look! Ain't that sweet! With his wee balaclava on he looks just like his Dad!

[Shudder]

Merciful God be praised! With the silly season now safely out the way, the city centre can return to it's normal level of traffic congestion and road rage. What a blessed relief from the pre-festive constipation that throttled every street and bus lane. The passing of New Year is like a dose of Immodium in so many ways.

However, there is no rest for the honest bus driver. No matter how quiet the roads, how late the night, how cold the air and how heavy the rain - you will always get someone who wants to go somewhere.

This particular someone was a nutty fruit-cake wearing a biker jacket and big boots, and the somewhere was evidently the back seat of my bus. When he boarded at Clydebank, I noticed that his expression was fixed and grim, like a doctor about to deliver some devastating information. As he showed me his pass, he leaned forward and with the utmost gravity said, "Driver, I've seen more aeroplanes than joggers tonight."

He stood there nodding, apparently expecting a reaction.

"That's...strange," I said.

The fruit-cake stared at me for several moments before breaking off and taking a seat at the rear of the bus.

An MI5 agent? Intelligence officers frequently use code words to find their contacts. Had he mistaken me for Deepthroat? [retch] But I wonder if I had answered with, "They say Venice is chilly in springtime," could I have started World War III?

Nukes or no nukes, two chunky metal-heads I picked up next on Dumbarton Road definitely looked post-apocalyptic, if slightly virginal - Mad Max meets Beavis and Butt-head. The one with the mohican kept bursting out with "I am Iron Man, na na na na na na, Iron Man." Iron Man? Frying Pan, more like! - a big scoffer-chump was he!

Then, as I approached the city centre I picked up a real Iron Man. Or Ironside, at least. A middle aged man in a wheel chair was flapping his arms at me at Charing Cross. Fortunately the bus stop had a raised kerb so I did not have to lower the suspension or even get out my cab to extend the wheel chair ramp. Me lazy.

Ironside motored his way straight on to the bus with a nod and grin. He seemed like an affable ol' gent but I couldn't ignore his dried up yap. Only by snogging a radiator could he have achieved such a parched and cracked kisser. You have to feel sorry for his wife, if he had one. A goodnight peck from those granite lips would feel more like a nasty nip from an angry clam.

With Ironside safely stowed, we set off. I was mentally begging Beavis and Butt-head not to continue with 'Iron Man' in case the wheeler took offence. Of course, they did, but Ironside just played it cool and sculpted his choppy muncher into a craggy smile.

My suspicions returned to the nutty MI5 fruit-cake wearing the biker jacket. I watched him on the CCTV screen as he removed a mobile phone from his inside pocket, flipped it open and then set about completely destroying it. He snapped it in two, then snapped each half again and continued snapping the plastic until he couldn't snap plastic any more.

What on Earth was he doing? Bits of phone were flying off everywhere. Was he destroying secret evidence? Had he found an enemy bug? Perhaps my lack of reaction to his coded greeting in Clydebank had made him resort to plan B - suicide - crack open his phone and gain access to a concealed cyanide pill. One can only hope.

Double-O Fruit-cake then abandoned his phone wreckage, got to his feet and came down the bus.

"Driver, do you go to Renfrew Street?" he asked.

"Nope," said I.

"Right, just let me off at these traffic lights, then."

I opened the doors and he sloped off the bus. The lights turned green and I pulled into a bus stop to let some other passengers off. But just as I was about to close the doors and move away, I saw a silhouette in my mirror. A man was sprinting for my bus, so I sat and waited for him to arrive.

It was Double-O fruit-cake again! He was all out of breath from running as he clumped on to my bus once more. "Driver!" he said. "Do you go to Renfrew Street?"

"No! You just asked me that ten seconds ago!"

"Oh! Was that you?"

"That was me."

Maybe it wasn't a cyanide pill he took after all. More like a stupidity pill. Paracetamong. Like he just popped an extra chromosome. He clearly had a surplus. Fortunately he took himself and his chromosomes off my bus without another word. (Spotted bottle of Buckfast in his pocket as he left!)

At central station, Ironside came wheeling down the bus to get off. With no raised kerb, I applied the hand brake and pressed the button to lower the suspension. But nothing happened. I pressed it again, but the bus did not kneel. Arse!

Even having got out my cab to extend the wheelchair ramp, without the suspension being lowered, the angle of the ramp was too steep to drive a wheelchair down. Ironside just looked at the ramp and then looked at me. He was marooned!

"The bus won't go down," I said, hopelessly.

"It's alright, driver, I'll just reverse down it slowly."

"No way! It's too steep!"

But the fool had styled round and was beginning to edge off the bus backwards. Thankfully, Beavis and Butt-head, who were also getting off at the stop, saw his predicament and decided to lend a hand. They tried to support the wheelchair from the back as Ironside teetered further and further over.

However, Ironside's wheelchair was of the motorized variety. It's huge batteries made it far heavier than a normal wheelchair and little tubbers Beavis and Butt-head just couldn't quite cope. In a fearful confusion of tumbling and shouting, Ironside careered down the ramp and ended up on his back on the pavement. Wump!

Rather than 'support' his wheelchair down the ramp, Beavis and Butt-head merely broke Ironside's plunge to the concrete pavement.

"Are you alright, mate?" asked the mohican, as passers by came to assist.

"Aye! Just help me up!" replied Ironside, but his hands flapping over the joystick caused his wheels to jerk round and made it difficult for Beavis and Butt-head to right him. In the end, it took FOUR people to get him back up on his wheels.

Slightly bruised after his capsize, he skittered off into the night. Ironside may be a tactical wizard in the court room, but getting off a bus he's a clumsy oaf.